Holidays? Not really! Earlier this week I attended the NZRA (now the NZLA) reading conference in Auckland. It was an interesting few days with some good speakers and workshops.
The highlight for me was listening to Dr Steven Layne. http://www.stevelayne.com He is an incredibly charismatic and entertaining speaker with a clear passion for literature and teaching. His keynote speech was entitled: 'Confessions of a Reading Arsonist' and focussed on how to engage reluctant readers. I was also lucky enough to attend one of his workshops, where he shared practical tips for 'igniting the fire'. One I particularly liked was to have every staff member in the school, that's EVERY STAFF MEMBER have a small book stand which displays "Mrs Smith's Hot Reads,' that person's current favourite kids' book.
I'm looking forward to purchasing his book for our school. Check it out here: http://www.stevelayne.com/go.jsp?t=author&g=professional
Another highlight for me was attending the Sheena Cameron and Louise Dempsey writing workshop. I really enjoyed Louise's quiet, friendly manner, she must be great with kids, and I appreciated the fact that these two professionals have a wealth of experience as hands on teachers in NZ schools. Together they have written this helpful book:
It's full of templates, exemplars, ideas and even comes with a CD Rom. And incredibly, I managed to win one (YAY ME! ) in the lucky spot prize draw. I know this is going to be useful in my teaching programme, and I believe that there's something in there for all levels. I found that this workshop really reinforced how literacy can't be separated into 'doing reading' and 'doing writing'.
A couple of things struck me as interesting and slightly odd at this conference. Firstly; where were all the men? Now of course I know they are a minority in the teaching profession, but honestly there were so very few male teachers in attendance compared to some of the other conferences I've been to. (Ulearn springs to mind) Why is that? Is literacy not the one thing that underpins the entire curriculum? Are our male teachers less interested in reading than they are in whizz-bang technology? Or am I barking up the wrong tree here?
The second interesting point is the lack of obvious technology among the delegates. (Again in contrast to Ulearn) I saw a few ipads being used but there was very little tweeting going on (in fact I think there was only two of us!) The wifi was problematic, the password not readily available. No googledocs were created, or notes / links shared via the internet. Most remarkably of all (in my view) was that a 1B4 exercise book and a pen was included in our conference pack!
The closing speaker for the conference was Fifi Colston, illustrator, author, TV presenter ( among other things) and she was delightful. A woman of enormous talent and great drive, and she spins a good yarn!
So all in all it was a good conference, and now I find my 'holiday' half over and I have barely started planning for next term. Oh well, that's next week's job!
